Home Goes The Warrior
Read Home Goes The Warrior Online
Authors: Jeff Noonan
Navy Lieutenant Lee Raines returned to the States after being badly wounded in the Viet Nam jungles. Now he just wants to finish his service, marry his fiancée, and find a quiet home in the suburbs. Instead he finds himself caught between the Mafia and the FBI as he battles thieves, murderers and a Soviet espionage ring on the mean streets of Philadelphia.
Only Marie was still awake, and now she had a chrome-plated pistol in her hand. It was pointed at him!
“I’ve waited years for this, you degenerate son of a bitch.” Her voice was calm and pitched so low he had to strain to hear it. “We gave you a chance to be something, but all you could think of was your dick. Now it’s payback time. This is for every time you ever touched me or any other woman without our permission.”
With that she fired once, hitting him just above the point where his pants legs came together. He screamed and gasped simultaneously, a choking, muffled confusion of sounds. He sagged to a sitting position on the floor, holding his groin with one hand and the table with the other. He was staring wildly at the people around him, looking for help, but they all seemed to be sleeping.
Marie laughed merrily at his confusion. “They’re all dead, you idiot.”
Lee suddenly realized that there was only one possible explanation. They had to be spies! If so, this was huge. The shipyard electronics manager, like his father before him, had access to virtually every secret the Navy possessed!
My God! They’ve had the design details of our shipboard weapons and electronic systems, as well as all of our radio/radar frequencies and codes, for the past thirty years! If they’ve been passing them on to Russia or China, our Navy is doomed in any kind of shooting war. This is an international game-changer!
This book is dedicated to all of the good friends I made in Philadelphia and South Jersey during my twenty years of working there. We had some great times together and I miss every one of you.
DISCLOSURE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Other books by Jeff Noonan
The Long Escape (Amazon 2012)
Rocky Mountain Justice (The Legend of Camel’s Hump)
(Amazon 2013)
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2013 by John J. Noonan
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13:978-1491006948
ISBN-10:1491006943
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER TWO - A TOP-SECRET VISIT
CHAPTER THREE - MEMORIES AWAKENED
CHAPTER FIVE - A VERY REAL GODFATHER
CHAPTER SIX - FBI HEADQUARTERS
CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE INHERITANCE
CHAPTER TWELVE - HOUSE HUNTING
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - PLANNING, ESTIMATING, AND SUPPLY
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - PRODUCTION SHOPS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - A QUIET MORNING RUN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - TERMINATION INITIATED
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - RIFLE SHOT
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - FIRE AND DEATH
CHAPTER NINETEEN - BREAKING NEWS SPECIAL
CHAPTER TWENTY - PRISON INTEROGATIONS
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - SCOTLAND YARD, CYANIDE, AND A MYSTERY
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - THE QUIET TIME
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - GAME CHANGER!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - THE HOMECOMING
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - THE SNIPER’S FAMILY
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - THE MEETING
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - JUST ORDINARY CRIMINALS
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - PEACE AT LAST
CHAPTER ONE - HOMEPORT
he Navy cruiser was slicing through San Diego Bay, hurtling forward as it closed on the sterns of the ships moored ahead. Only the death-grip on the arms of his chair betrayed Captain Neilsen’s nervousness. He was determined to stay quiet and see what happened. The officer of the deck was, after all, his best ship handler. But the ship was moving fast and the captain was worried.
“All back full!” The order from Lieutenant Lee Raines was crisp and direct, penetrating the quiet of the bridge. It was immediately repeated by a young seaman as he transmitted the corresponding signal to the engine room. “All back full aye, Sir.” The big ship shuddered as its twin screws bit into the water, slowing its forward momentum.
A moment later, another order, “Left full rudder!” This time it was the helmsman that replied, as he spun the big ship’s wheel. “Left full rudder aye, Sir.”
An older bosun’s mate was standing in the rear of the bridge, monitoring the performance of his enlisted bridge crew. But this unprecedented display of speed as they approached the berth had his full attention right now.
What in hell is the lieutenant up to now?
The ship was slowing, but its bow was too far out from the pier and its fantail too close to do a standard approach. It looked like the ship was going to have to back up and try again, an event that wouldn’t look good, especially in front of the senior naval officers watching from the surrounding ships. But the bosun knew Lieutenant Raines was too experienced to end up being
embarrassed this way, so he was puzzled. The ship continued to shudder as it came to a stop in the water.
Lieutenant Raines moved to the wing of the bridge, looking back toward the fantail as it neared the pier. After a short time, he gave more orders: “All stop! Rudder amidships.” The helmsman and lee helmsman responded appropriately, and the violent shaking of the ship began to ease as the screws slowed and finally stopped. The ship was now dead in the water with its fantail about fifteen feet from the pier and its bow at least thirty or forty feet out.
Then the plan became obvious. Captain Neilsen visibly relaxed in his chair and the bosun’s mate started chuckling quietly. The strong afternoon breeze was turning the ship slowly as it caught the tall sail area of the bow and superstructure. The wind was blowing the ship toward the pier, with the low fantail moving much more slowly than the tall bow. The lieutenant had positioned the ship perfectly and now he was just watching as the breeze parked the ship in exactly the right spot on the pier!
The hordes of visitors waiting on the pier told the world that this wasn’t an ordinary docking. The big cruiser was returning from an eight-month deployment to the Western Pacific, a deployment that had included several months in the Gulf of Tonkin supporting Viet Nam operations. It had been a long deployment, and both the crew and their families on the pier were ecstatic that it was over.
